Getting started with e-portfolios: University of Cumbria
UKCLE funded project
Project team: Sefton Bloxham, Fiona Boyle and Ann Thanaraj, University of Cumbria (e-mail: sefton.bloxham@cumbria.ac.uk)
Project summary: using e-portfolios to support personal development planning, career development and reflective learning
Completion date: October 2009
Funding: £1,000, with further support from the University of Cumbria’s Centre for the Development of Learning and Teaching
Project latest: paper presented at BILETA 2009 and Learning in Law Annual Conference 10 and published in JILT 2009 (3) – Using e-portfolios to support PDP and reflective learning within the law curriculum | slides from Learning in Law Annual Conference 10 embedded below
UKCLE awarded funding to the law school at the University of Cumbria for a pilot project aimed at embedding e-portfolios within the new degree programme to support personal development planning (PDP) and reflective learning. The project complemented the three mini-projects undertaken as part of UKCLE’s Using e-portfolios in legal education project.
The project aimed to:
- develop expertise in personal tutoring to support PDP within the law programme
- evaluate the student experience of e-portfolios
- disseminate research findings, linked to institutional and national initiatives
The PDP programme is delivered through designated modules at each level of study. The team redesigned the PDP framework within a first year module (Legal skills and method) to accommodate the use of e-portfolios and held staff development sessions to explain the rationale of the project and give hands-on training with PebblePad, the chosen e-portfolio software.
Findings
Key issues which emerged from the project include:
- staff development needs in respect of both IT and personal tutoring skills
- IT challenges relating to the development of the e-portfolio templates
- student access to the software and student ownership
- assessment issues
Evaluation of the project was carried out through a series of questionnaires and focus groups, which identified that e-portfolios:
- played a significant role in supporting and enhancing the process of reflection on learning
- supported the development of students’ employability skills by providing a vehicle for reflection on work experience opportunities and CV writing
- provided a vehicle for recording academic acheivements and skills development
Students indicated that further support was required in a number of areas:
- more detailed guidance on the use of the different ‘assets’ in PebblePad
- more structured diet of tasks for reflection
- support from personal tutor could be variable
Last Modified: 4 June 2010
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